Taking ownership

All anyone needs to do to know that Silver Springs is desperate to be saved is to take a quick boat ride up the Silver River to the headspring. Do a 360 and the problems jump out at you.

Brad RogersEditorial Page Editor

ll anyone needs to do to know that Silver Springs is desperate to be saved is to take a quick boat ride up the Silver River to the headspring. Do a 360 and the problems jump out at you.

Brown algae carpets the spring floor. Paint is peeling off buildings and the world-famous glass bottom boats. Weeds are choking the banks. The namesake silver that gave Silver Springs its name is no more, nor is the crystal clear water that has been its calling card since, well, forever.

So it was good news this week that the Springs’ owner, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, is planning a community meeting sometime in December to hear ideas from local folks about what they would like to see become of the Springs, now leased and operated — and not very well, I must say — by amusement park giant Palace Entertainment. That Palace specializes in amusement parks is the first clue that it and Silver Springs, a sensitive environmental jewel, are not a good fit.

But back to DEP. For two years now, County Commissioner Stan McClain and County Administrator Lee Niblock have been championing a plan to put Silver Springs back in public control. Essentially, the pair has lobbied tirelessly to turn the world’s most famous freshwater spring into a public park for all to enjoy — run either by the county or the state.

Of course, their plan is about more than getting back to nature, although that’s an important part of it. Silver Springs will die if it is not rescued.

McClain and Niblock, who spent a quarter century with the Florida Parks Service, believe that Silver Springs not only can be turned into a first-class urban public park but become the centerpiece of a steadily expanding ecotourism industry here. In short, they see it as a potential economic engine.

Up till now, however, DEP has been quiet, watching and measuring from the background. Now that it is ready to step front and center is terrific news.

For the first year that McClain’s plan was bandied about, it seemed he was going to be a lone voice in the crowd. Then came 2012. Over the past year, the notion of saving Silver Springs and investing in a renaissance project to return it to newfound glory days has drawn support from state Sens. Charlie Dean and Alan Hays, state Reps. Dennis Baxley and Charlie Stone, the Florida Conservation Coalition, the newly formed Silver Springs Alliance and, importantly, DEP Secretary Herschel Vinyard. Vinyard told me earlier this year that he believes Silver Springs should be a state park. Hear, hear!

In the end, what happens to Silver Springs, and how quickly, will no doubt be decided in part by money — who pays for what and how they, er, we pay for it. But that DEP is finally taking ownership of what it owns is huge. Silver Springs as a public park will be a success — guaranteed. Silver Springs as a 21st century ecotourism destination seems like a good gamble, but there is no guarantee.

For right now, though, that an environmental rescue of Silver Springs is at hand is the first and essential step.